European Union leaders are meeting in southern Finland to discuss how to ensure stable supplies of energy. They will be joined for dinner by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country supplies a quarter of the gas and oil consumed in the EU. The leaders will urge Mr Putin to improve conditions for EU companies to invest in Russian energy projects. They will also call on Russia to find the killer of the murdered journalist, Anna Politkovskaya. The summit's Finnish hosts say its purpose is to encourage the EU to "speak with one voice" in its energy dealings with Russia. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged his fellow leaders to put climate change at the centre of their discussions. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), running as an independent, has taken a wide 17-point lead over Democrat Ned Lamont in the Senate race in Connecticut, according to a poll released on Friday. Lieberman, a three-term incumbent and the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee who lost to Lamont in the party primary, held a 52 percent to 35 percent lead in the three-way race, said the poll, the first since a televised debate this week.Republican Alan Schlesinger trailed with 6 percent, according to the Quinnipiac University poll of 881 likely voters. The survey's margin of error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.Lamont, a millionaire businessman who beat Lieberman in the primary by attacking the longtime Democrat's support for the Iraq war, had trailed by 10 points in a September 28 poll despite digging deep into his own pockets to help fund the campaign....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061020/pl_nm/lieberman_dc

At least 914,000 Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, more than a third since an increase in sectarian bloodshed at the start of this year, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.The overall number is likely to be much higher, said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency has concluded that 754,000 displaced Iraqis remain in the country, while tens of thousands more have sought refuge abroad."We remain extremely concerned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq and the ongoing displacement this is creating both inside and outside Iraq," Redmond told reporters.Redmond told The Associated Press that at least 40,000 Iraqis have arrived in Syria every month for the last four months.Most of those who have fled their homes since the start of the war came from central areas of the country around Baghdad, Redmond said....http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/ap/world/mainD8KSD4UO1.shtml

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il told a visiting Chinese envoy the North had no plans to conduct more nuclear tests, South Korea's Yonhap news agency says. Mr Kim made the comment to Tang Jiaxuan in Pyongyang on Thursday, Yonhap said, quoting an unnamed diplomat in Beijing. Mr Tang was sent by China's President Hu Jintao to urge the Stalinist state not to repeat its 9 October blast. The first test resulted in international outrage and UN sanctions being brought against North Korea. China is North Korea's closest ally and has publicly warned the North not to test another weapon, reportedly threatening to cut off vital oil supplies if it goes ahead. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6069652.stm

Sudan's armed forces said the continued presence of the United Nations' top envoy in Sudan posed a danger to the army after comments he made about two major army losses in battles with Darfur rebels. Envoy Jan Pronk said on his Web site that the army had suffered two major defeats, generals had been sacked and demoralized soldiers had refused service in North Darfur in recent weeks. The Sudanese military statement said Pronk was intervening in the affairs of the armed forces and cooperating with the rebels to wage a psychological war against the army. "We think that the presence of Jan Pronk in Sudan represents a military danger to the Sudan armed forces in … carrying out its duties," said the statement, released on Friday. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2590878

Politicians and church leaders are weighing into an increasingly heated debate over who owns the fertile farmlands of Argentina, which used to be known as the world's bread basket. The large South American country is a top-five supplier of soybeans, wheat, corn and beef, and while its farming exports brought in about $12 billion last year, a third of Argentines live below the poverty line. Some say the ownership of most of the country's farmlands by a rich elite is partly to blame for such inequality, though farming groups say concentration fosters greater productivity. "The growth of conglomerates in the economy — especially the multinationals — has produced a situation that's harmful to small-holder farmers," said Luis D'Elia, a former protest leader picked by the government to lead a land redistribution program. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2590881